Regulating Blockchain: Critical Perspectives in Law and Technology

Abstract

As the distributed architecture underpinning the initial Bitcoin anarcho-capitalist, libertarian project, "blockchain" entered wider public imagination and vocabulary only very recently. Yet in a short space of time it has become more mainstream and synonymous with a spectacular variety of commercial and civic "problem"/"solution" concepts and ideals. From commodity provenance, to electoral fraud prevention, to a wholesale decentralization of power and the banishing of the exploitative practices of "middlemen", blockchain stakeholders are nothing short of evangelical in their belief that it is a force for good. For these reasons and more the technology has captured the attention of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, global corporations and governments the world over.